


Over the Garden Wall

by rowan_one



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowan_one/pseuds/rowan_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shirou contemplates his options, lost in his thoughts on a ledge. He has lost count of the minutes he has spent here along with the number of smokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over the Garden Wall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exorpriest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exorpriest/gifts).



His favorite place to sneak away. Found somehow when he had been wandering around, stalking away from someone or something that had pissed him off in his usual cloud of cigarette smoke.

Secluded, quiet, he wasn’t even entirely sure anyone else ever came here. There were so many cantelevered ledges around this place, so many jutting precipes. If he didn’t know the likes of the so called Chairman better, he would swear this was not a cared for garden, but a patch of weeds sprung up in an abandoned patch.

“Of course not, that bastard has too much pride in this shithole circus he runs to have anyplace be immaculate. At the very least custodial staff or employees come by to care for the area.” He grumbled, teeth clenched tightly around a cigarette as he voiced his thoughts to the empty air. It seemed stupid to do so, but at the very least better than letting all the voices swirl around inside his head.

It was someplace to hide, a ledge he had met no other at, though the plants growing in the narrow space had to be maintained, he had never seen so much as a soul. And there he stood, taking harsh breaths in and out of each cigarette he went through in an attempt to calm his itching nerves.

He knew this place offered the option no one dared to touch upon, because this particular spot offered no obstruction. No fence or wall to block the view. No safety net in the event of– an “accident.”

An accident, an accident, that’s all he would be once he was found, splattered and cracked apart on the hard ground far below. That’s all the news, the school, _that bastard_ would paint it as. Such a pity he had wanted a walk through the secluded garden edge. Quite precarious in its beauty, isn’t it? The twisted smirk shouldn’t make its way to his face at the thought, and yet–.

“ _That_ sort of thing will certainly get a fence up here.” Talking to the air again, and it had no answer for him, nor did it offer a solution to the mess inside of him. 

Pull out cigarette. Light. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. He had lost count of the minutes he had spent here along with the number of smokes.

He peered out over the edge now, for he had chosen to face Death and Danger in his usual stubborn manor. Perched on the very edge, putting out each cigarette on the thin brick line he balanced on. Ash fell from the smoldering end of the current fag, crumbling and falling down. Past his dangling feet and further. Past where he could see. Pulling it away from his mouth, he tossed it off the ledge as well.

“Down the rabbit hole.“Just like his sanity while he was trapped in this kooky place, run by a fucking nutjob.

He immediately lit another one, as was habit after sitting there and chainsmoking so long, and stood, spreading his stance a bit as per usual. Shoes scraping across the narrow bricks.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned forward, taunting the void below to grab him and pull him down.

He stayed like that for a moment, option there and inviting, as it always had been. He waited.

Ash from the newly lit fag fell. And that was all. Whatever the voices in his head _screamed_ , the call of the void would not answer them.

Scoffing, he straightened up, gaze still glaring down, as if somehow offended. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he turned and stepped down to the grass on the other side.

Wasteful as it seemed– although how many fucks did he really give at this point?– he had the urge to crush the cigarette in his hand and toss that one over the edge too. Yanking up the sleeve of his free arm, he snuffed it on his wrist, face twisted in a grimace as he held back any cry of pain, before whirling around and chucking it over the side too. 

His breath escaped out his teeth in hisses of pain from the stinging burn, he turned heel for the last time (at least, for a while) and stalked away from the ledge, from the garden, and started winding his way back through the school, aiming for the winding path that would take him down to the exit, the gate. He needed a longer walk off a shorter cliff. If he could ever find one just right for him.

He didn’t get far. Only until the center area of the campus before his phone buzzed a message. He didn’t have to open it to know who was grating on his last nerve. It was all he could do to not send his phone over the edge too. 

At least that option was viable rather than simply a tease.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr as @rowan-one!


End file.
